Windows 7 – How to Grant Admin Rights on an Application

To accomplish what you want, the easiest thing I can think of is to create a scheduled task with the administrative credentials that will be run at a set time or interval.

You can manipulate scheduled tasks via the command line (schtasks.exe) or login script.

However, I have to warn you that whenever you intentionally make holes in your own security, you are asking for trouble later on down the line.

It will only take one smart ass in order to find the name of the .exe, and change it or put whatever he/she wants there instead - e.g. they can copy cmd.exe to the location and rename, then suddenly they have a command prompt with administrator privileges! (ok, you can use NTFS permissions and stuff, they could take the hard drive out - you can use Bitlocker/encryption...) the point I am trying to make is, it is a hole that you are intentionally introducing.

Another solution would be to re-architect the program. I would suggest as some sort of system service that does the work, and simply have a client that invokes the service as and when it is needed. This should work well.

PROBLEM: You're trying to run these computers like a responsible admin, by not giving user's admin rights, and some crappy company writes some crappier app that wants admin rights to run

SOLUTION: Shim it! Use the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit

In computer programming, a shim (from shim) or shiv is a small library that transparently intercepts an API and changes the parameters passed, handles the operation itself, or redirects the operation elsewhere. They fix Compatibility issues for older applications which still rely on the older functionality. In such cases, the older API can still be supported by a thin compatibility layer on top of the newer code. Shims are used for running programs on different software platforms than they were developed for. (Source: Wikipedia)

I.E. a program that was written for XP and insists on running as an admin Look into shimming the application. It's like the Jedi Mind trick of IT. Shims will allow you to trick the program into thinking it has admin rights. Chances are all it really needs is just read/write to c:\program files\crappy company\crappy app or one single regkey.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2011/06/17/demystifying-shims-or-using-the-app-compat-toolkit-to-make-your-old-stuff-work-with-your-new-stuff.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd837644(v=ws.10).aspx